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What Are the Challenges and Development Spaces for Women and Men If the Sambor Hydropower Dam Is Developed?

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What Are the Challenges and Development Spaces for Women and Men If the Sambor Hydropower Dam Is Developed? International Conference on the Mekong, Salween and Red Rivers: Sharing Knowledge and Perspectives Across Borders | Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University | 12th November 2016 What Are the Challenges and Development Spaces for Women and Men If the Sambor Hydropower Dam Is Developed? Suon Siny Abstract The Sambor hydropower dam in Cambodia is still a pending decision. This paper explores the proposed scenario of the development of the Sambor dam and the challenges and development spaces for livelihood options this would present for both women and men. The Sambor project is predicted to impact upon the livelihoods of more than a million fisheries-dependent Cambodians and result in the resettlement of 19,000 people (ICEM, 2010). For this research, 200 families were selected for interview from five potentially affected locations. The interviews were conducted with an equal gender balance. This study found that both men and women in Sambor currently have similar challenges and opportunities to conduct their respective livelihood strategies and provide a similar share of the household income. Women actively contribute to all income generating activities and contribute a higher percentage of work than men for vegetable and livestock production and generation of household income through self-employment activities. As self-produced and wild-harvested food is not sufficient for meeting the needs of the household, cash income from both men and women is required to purchase additional food. However, women have a greater burden than men as culturally domestic work is often defined as a female role. If the Sambor hydropower dam proceeds and adopts similar approaches and processes to the provision of compensation that is currently being applied for the Lower Sesan 2 (LS2) dam, a few key gendered livelihood changes would be 366 International Conference on the Mekong, Salween and Red Rivers: Sharing Knowledge and Perspectives Across Borders | Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University | 12th November 2016 observed: a) women would face greater challenges than men in generating incomes from their existing skills in crop and livestock production as well as facing less viable opportunities for self-employment as the compensation policy provides uncertain livelihood alternatives; and b) men would face greater challenges than women in finding alternative livelihood options to compensate for the loss of income from fishing and raising cattle and buffalo as there is less free river access and grazing areas offered in the compensation policy. Downstream of the dam people would also be impacted upon by changes to water flow, which could affect fishing, agricultural production, and self- employment opportunities derived from agricultural production and fisheries. The compensation and resettlement policy should be substantially re-adjusted and further developed with full participation and consent from affected communities to ensure fairness and social justice is upheld in the Sambor hydropower development project. Livelihood restoration and the development of alternative livelihood options for both men and women is crucial in both the short and long term for this development intervention. Introduction The development of physical infrastructure is one of the key policy priorities and actions of Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) (RGC, 2014). Large-scale infrastructure such as large hydropower development projects have been promoted as energy sector policy since the first legislature (RGC, 2014). To date, six hydropower dams have been constructed in Cambodia (Oxfam in Cambodia, 2015). One controversial Mekong tributary dam, the Lower Sesan 2 (LS2), has already being constructed. On the Mekong River in Cambodia, two main channel dams have been proposed, namely the Steung Treng and Sambor Dams. Mega projects like these will strongly affect the current livelihood systems of local people (Nguyen, 2013). 367 International Conference on the Mekong, Salween and Red Rivers: Sharing Knowledge and Perspectives Across Borders | Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University | 12th November 2016 From the Draft Law on Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) (7th version, dated February 05, 2015), local people are defined as ‘project-affected people’ and are subject to receive compensation rather than benefits from hydropower development schemes. There is no mention in the draft EIA Law of a provision for benefit sharing between hydropower developers and local people, who traditionally depend on natural resources for their livelihood in these development areas. If people living in the impact zone of the dam are affected (bearing the cost of the dam) and do not share in the benefits of the dam construction, then the development cannot be considered fair and equitable. Resurreccionet al. (2011), defines equality to include equality of social benefits, costs or burdens, and risks in an attempt to dismiss phenomenon that some people are more equal than others. In Cambodia, a large gender inequality gap still exists in society (MOWA, 2014). Legal frameworks for conducting EIAs are inadequate and incomplete (MoE, 2015). The potential impacts of such mega hydropower projects disproportionately affect women in the project-affected communities (Simon, 2013). For example, poorer health outcomes due to declining water quality, and the disruption of social relationships and kinship structures due to resettlement (MRC, 2013). The Sambor hydropower dam is at an advanced stage of development planning and is considered as important for the power sector in Cambodia to replace expensive existing infrastructure and import-dependent electricity generation systems (ICEM, 2010). However, in early 2016, the Minister of Industry, Mines and Energy (MIME) stated that “There will be no construction of new hydropower dams until 2020” (Chea, 2016). This commitment was made in response to protests by affected communities and civil society that were held demanding impacts on livelihoods are considered in relation to the LS2 dam. In addition, commune elections are due in 2017 and the general election in 2018 is approaching. Regardless, whenever the decision to construct the Sambor hydropower dam is made, local people will essentially be forced to forgo their 368 International Conference on the Mekong, Salween and Red Rivers: Sharing Knowledge and Perspectives Across Borders | Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University | 12th November 2016 current livelihoods due to the project. Despite this, these people have yet to be meaningfully consulted or informed about the project. Even though the construction of Sambor hydropower dam has not yet been decided on, this paper aims to explore the challenges and development spaces for women and men based on the scenario of Sambor hydropower dam going ahead. Methodology The study uses an ex-ante assessment to consider the scenario that the Sambor dam will be constructed and that similar approaches and processes to that of the LS2 dam will be adopted for the resettlement and compensation of affected people. The paper makes a comparative assessment using the policy context and situation of the implementationoftheLS2 dam as this is the most recent experience of large dam being constructed in Cambodia. A review of key laws and policies related to hydropower development and a literature review of the recent experience with the LS2 dam was also conducted and used to reflect on the gendered livelihood impacts in this study. Data collection was completed between January and March 2016 in collaboration with Northeastern Rural Development (NRD), a local community-based organization operating within the study area. Two hundred families were surveyed using a structured questionnaire, applying a stratified and systematic sampling method. An equal number of male and female participants were interviewed. Recently, there has been no updated publicly available information for any of the earlier proposed options for a 460MW dam location for the Sambor hydropower project. Therefore, the scenario of the Sambor hydropower dam being built and located based on the plan for an installed capacity of 2600 MW (ICEM, 2010) was used for this assessment. Villages were chosen to obtain a broad representation of different livelihood options and socio-ecological setting 369 International Conference on the Mekong, Salween and Red Rivers: Sharing Knowledge and Perspectives Across Borders | Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University | 12th November 2016 upstream and downstream the proposed dam site. One hundred households were interviewed from upstream of the dam and 100 families were interviewed from downstream of the dam. In order to assess the different gendered livelihoods in the study area, the first section of the questionnaire collected data about each family member follow by second section asking about their assets, income generating activities, and domestic work. This enabled an analysis of the gender dimensions of the project and the development of conclusions about the gendered impacts of the dam. Figure 1: Proximate location of study areas and the hydropower dam Source: Google map image cross referenced with the dam location from “Assessing Options for Managing Sediment during Design of Sambor Dam” (Annandale et al., 2014) Officially, where a family with a husband and wife are both present, the husband is recorded as family head. For widowed families, the woman is recorded as family head. However, in reality, many families
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